Gardenias
by Laitie
Summary: A new chick shows up and threatens Robin for damaging her gardenias in the midst of battle with Klarion. Never to take threats lightly, the team discovers a strange magic about this girl, along with the danger she will unintentionally bring to, well, the world. But while the team works to protect her and destroy the other threat that she did not want to make, relationships develop


"MY GARDENIAS!" The screech was loud enough to make Tim's ears ring. When he looked up from where he had landed in a patch of flowers, The Boy Wonder saw his nose inches away from a young woman's very angry face. He quickly bounced back, away from her.

"Who are you?" he demanded. He glanced around to try and figure out how this girl had suddenly shown up so close to the battleground. She certainly hadn't been gardening, as her clothes were casual and had no dirt on them.

The girl didn't answer. Instead, she demanded in turn, "What were you doing in my gardenias?" through gritted teeth. She didn't flinch as an explosion rang through the trees. Another clash between Klarion and M'Ghan, it looked like.

Tim sighed and shook head. "Look, I'm kinda busy," he said, heading toward the battle ground.

"Apologize!" she screamed in his face.

That made him pause. "What?"

"Apologize!" she demanded again. As she spoke, Robin noticed he was rapidly being entangled by nearby tree branches. He tried to pull free, but the branches entangled themselves tighter.

His eyes narrowed and he finally took a moment to properly look this girl over. Her skin was slightly olive-toned, making her look at least part hispanic. The long, shiny black hair helped with that. Her eyes, however, were a bright green. She looked a lot younger than she acted. She couldn't be any older than 12! "What are you doing!?" he demanded.

"These gardenias are descended from Marie Antoinette's own, personal garden! They must be treated with respect! Apologize!"

"I don't-"

"Robin!" Footsteps sounded as the rest of the team came into view around them. Everyone froze when they saw their friend being held captive by branches.

"They're waiting!" The girl demanded.

"Who are you?" Nightwing asked calmly, glaring at the girl.

The girl whipped around and glared back at him.

"Tell your boyfriend to apologize to my gardenias!" She turned to glare at Tim again. "Before they curse him."

"Gardenias?" M'Ghan asked.

'Flowers,' Cassie told her telepathically.

'Why is she upset about flowers?' M'Ghan asked the team through the telepathic link.

'It's not important right now,' Nightwing thought back before speaking again. "Miss, we would be glad to help you with your garden." He ignored her as she turned to glare daggers at him. "But first we need to know who you are and what happened here."

"This is not a garden," the girl spat. "This is my patch of gardenias that your boyfriend ruined!"

"You do realize we just saved your butt from-"

"What Beast Boy means is," Nightwing said, giving a sidelong look at Gar before returning to the girl, "we're sorry for hurting your...gardenias."

"Tell them that!" she demanded pointing at the ruined patch of flowers.

"Enough!" Connor roared as he came up behind Robin and began tearing away at the branches.

"Hey!" the girl demanded, rounding on the black-haired youth. "That hurts!"

"Not as much as they hurt Robin!" Gar argued as he Robin untangled himself.

"He struggled!"

"You tied him up!" he countered. "In branches!"

"I didn't rip his ear off!"

"Enough!" Nightwing called. Everyone silenced and looked over at him. "I understand that we harmed your flowers, but that does not make it OK for you to hold my teammate against his will or threaten him. Now, we are done here."

"No you're not!" the girl said. "He still hasn't apologized!"

Nightwing sighed inwardly. 'Just apologize,' he thought to the team.

'Seriously?' Tim thought over to him. A final look from his leader made him give in. Grudgingly, he turned and looked at the girl. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Not to me!" she said, rolling her eyes. "To the gardenias!"

His eyes widened as he looked back at his leader.

'Humor her,' Grayson thought. 'We will research the girl back at the cave.'

With a sigh, and struggling to ignore the embarrassment of all his friends watching him apologize to flowers, he bent down and looked at the mess of a flowering patch. "I'm sorry," he said.

"You don't mean it," the girl said.

"I-"

'Robin!' Grayson thought to him, knowing that it wasn't worth any more arguing..

"Fine then," the girl said with a roll of her eyes. "But they still cursed you."

Everyone tensed. "Remove the curse," Cassie warned, "or I'll remove you."

"I can't," the girl said, looking at Wonder Girl like she were an idiot. "The gardenias did it. They're descended from the bulbs in Merlin's garden."

"Like I said," Nightwing said, "we are done here." Each member of the team turned and headed their separate ways.

Kye sighed when the team was out of sight. Shaking her head, she turned to look at the sad mess of what was once a glorious patch of beautiful, white flowers.

The trees told her that the Robin kid was still watching her, in their branches and out of sight. But she didn't really care. Her first priority was the gardenias.

She took a deep breath and gathered her strength. Slowly, she stepped into the patch, turned and sat down. She assumed a meditative position with her legs crossed in front of her, her hands out by her sides and palms up. She pinched her middle fingers and thumbs together as she closed her eyes and focused.

A golden light began to emanate around her. It grew brighter and brighter until Tim could no longer see what was going on. A few minutes later, the light began to dim. Finally, Robin could make out the girl standing before the patch, her back to him. But this time, the gardenias looked completely fixed, like nothing had ever happened to them. And the girl...

"She's got wings," he muttered into the comm. On her back, a pair of fairy-like wings fluttered casually. They were proportionately sized for her to be a human-sized fairy, and Tim wondered how he and everyone else had missed them before.

"Hey, Robin-kid." Robin tensed as the girl turned to face him, seemingly looking straight at him. "If you wanna hang out in that tree all day, that's nobody's business. But could you at least move to a different branch so that squirrel can get to her nest?"

Tim narrowed his eyes and dared a glance to the side. On the branch a few feet away from him stood a squirrel, staring at him and holding two nuts.

"She's pregnant," the girl went on. "She needs her rest."

Silently, Robin slipped out of the tree. "How did you-"

When he stepped into the sunlight, the girl was walking away from him. "H-"

"Robin," came Nightwing's voice, "we have enough. Come back to the cave."

With a sigh, he nodded. "Coming," he said, watching as the girl's image melted into the trees.

"Carmen Martinez," Nightwing announced to the team. He manned the computer as the screen showed stats for a teenage girl that looked a lot like the girl in the forest. "15. Taken into foster care at birth. Her mother is a drug addict. Father is multi-millionaire Juan Martinez, head of the largest illegal drug trade between Mexico and the U.S. Everything from marijuana to cobra."

"So where do the wings come in?" Tim asked.

"No record of anything like that," Nightwing reported. "Her records during foster care show that she was always very defiant and getting into trouble."

"Like any other foster kid," Raquel noted.

"But no magic or wings. They do show that her eyes changed color, though."

"What?" Gar asked.

"She used to have brown eyes. When she was 8, she ran away from her foster home and got lost in the woods. They found her over a year later, playing by a small waterfall. That was when people noticed that her eye-color had changed to green. Reports say she refused to talk about what had happened to her in the woods that year. But they also say that she hadn't shown to be negatively affected by it."

"She's a foster kid," Raquel said. "Wonder what she'll do when she's moved away and can't take care of her flowers."

"She's not going to move away," Nightwing said. "She was adopted three years ago by Jane Wright and Mary Prince." He pulled up pictures of the women and their family. "They also adopted Dustin Black, 16, and Anaiya Powell, 4."

The team gazed at the diverse family. Jane and Mary were both white, Jane with blond hair and Mary with dark brown. Dustin looked clearly Native American with his dark skin and long, black hair; while Anaiya was undoubtedly black, with her darker skin and tightly curled hair tied into two puffs atop her head.

"Carmen needs to be watched closely." Nightwing ordered. "She threatened Robin and hides her abilities expertly. Her potential connection to her father is also concerning. Robin, she was just enrolled into your school last week. Learn everything you can."

"Me?" Tim asked.

Nightwing looked over at him. "You don't have to talk to her," he said, chuckling. "I know your record with girls. Or, lack thereof."

Tim glared at the acrobat. But he couldn't deny his unwillingness to speak to any girl in his school, much less this Carmen Martinez.


End file.
